Discussions By Condition: I cannot get a diagnosis.

Knee locked and won't straighten - how do I unlock it?

I keep having my left knee lock and it won't straighten. It's doing it right now and I'm stuck. There's never any pain unless I try to straighten it. The pain is located where the locking is at which is below the knee cap.

I need some advice on a good, pain free way to unlock it.

What I've tried so far is the following :

1. place hands on either side of knee cap and push it left and right for 40 seconds.2. sit and wait it out.

#1 above works only about 50% of the time. #2 gets used as a last resort and when it works, I've sat waiting as long as 2 hours! and then it unlocks by itself.

Since neither option above is that great to unlock my knee, I'm wondering if anyone has any better ideas.

Some history of the knee :

It's being caused by severe weakness of the leg muscles. So, till I can get PT (physical therapy) for it and it 'kicks in enough', I'll probably face more knee locking. I've seen 2 doctors and they've agreed the cause is extreme muscle weakness. A PT said it this way, "The muscles should bear the brunt of the body's weight while standing/walking, but your knees are doing it instead because the muscles are too weak to do the job." This is why I have PT planned, to strengthen everything.

The reason for the weakness is having faced 6 years of lack of exercise - and I mean extremely lacking it BIG TIME. This happened because I was misdiagnosed bipolar and the meds' side effects left me so ill I could rarely leave my home. Once I figured out I was misdiagnosed and got off the meds, that's left me with severe muscle weakness head to toe, but particularly noticeable in the left knee only because of this locking up thing. The locking up thing didn't start until I slacked off at-home beginner stretching, then the knee started up and hasn't quit since - it's been going on for 12 days.

As I said, I have PT planned soon, however it'll be locking and I need a better way to get out of it, if there is a better way. Please leave any suggestions.

Thanks.

P.S. I forgot to mention when this locking occurs. It happens in the following situations :

A. After sitting on edge of bed, I then start to lay down in bed. Having to put my legs on the bed does it.

B. While walking and I have to turn a corner, even if the corner isn't a sharp one.

C. Just now it locked because I tried to put my feet on a chair to elevate them.

D. While standing and I turn my body a little to the left or right.

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If anyone notices, I just tried to post without my account but it wouldn't show up because it said it was awaiting moderation. So I thought, "Uh oh, but my knee is locked right now. By the time it posts, it'll be too late for my 'right now' problem".

Because of this, I decided to log in and post this same post. So please forgive it when you see another post by me under the name 'bamboo'.